The present invention generally relates to a method of forming butter-based products, such as a butter/margarine blend, and to butter-based products that are prepared by this method. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method of concentrating interfacial butter solids of butter, to a method of incorporating the interfacial butter solids in butter-based products, and to butter-based products that contain a concentrated amount of the interfacial butter solids.
Butter preparation methods represent some of the oldest techniques for utilizing fat components that are found in milk. Butter manufacture has been accomplished in one form or another for over 4500 years. Over the centuries, butter has been used in sacrificial worship ceremonies, for medicinal and cosmetic purposes, and as a human food.
Butter production techniques generally evolved into more sophisticated techniques as new forms and uses of equipment developed. For example, the barrel churn made its appearance toward the end of the 18th century when non-wooden manufacturing materials entered widespread use in creaming and butter making equipment. These advances led to advances in cream separation techniques and, by 1879, continuous operation cream separators were known in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. Likewise, butter production evolved from an individual farm activity to a factory based technique with the introduction of milk pooling systems for creamery operation in the 1870s. Later advances in fat quantification techniques, pasteurization, refrigeration, and bacterial culture usage further advanced the art of butter production.
Advances in butter production technology helped make butter a staple item in the kitchen. Certain components of butter, such as interfacial butter solids, give butter-based baked goods properties that are not achievable by margarines and presently available butter/margarine blends. For example, butter melts somewhat evenly in the mouth to yield a smooth, rich mouth-feel that is characteristic of butter. As another example, the protein and lactose components of butter give desirable browning characteristics to baked goods that incorporate butter. Also, the phospholipid portion of butter gives body to baked goods and gives the baked goods the characteristic rich flavor long associated with butter. Phospholipids, proteins, and sugars, such as lactose, are each components of interfacial butter solids.
Despite these highly desirable taste and baking properties associated with butter, butter consumption came under attack by nutritionists and the medical profession during the 1970s and 1980s because of links thought to exist between butter consumption and certain health conditions. Also, butter prices tend to be relatively volatile over the long term. These factors led to increasing use of butter substitutes, such as margarine and butter/margarine blends, that included fat sources in addition to, or other than, butterfat. Existing butter/margarine blends are typically based on butter; other fat sources, such as soybean oil, cotton seed oil, canola oil, and other types of vegetable oils; water; and emulsifying agents, such as monoglycerides and diglycerides. Margarines are typically based on various combinations of water and vegetable oils and may include or exclude butterfat, depending upon the formulation of the particular margarine.
However, even present margarines that include butterfat and present butter/margarine blends that include butter do not have the characteristic mouth-feel of butter and typically do not give baked goods the browning properties and body-yielding properties that are characteristic of butter. This is true even though numerous artificial butter flavoring compounds have been developed and incorporated into margarines and butter/margarine blends over the years.
Thus, even though these alternatives to pure butter have helped to reduce the amount of saturated fats and calories in the human diet and have helped to stabilize the cost of supplying nutritionally necessary fat in the human diet, these advances have come at the cost of losing butter-like baking properties, such as the browning and baking characteristics yielded by butter, and the rich flavor and characteristic mouth-feel exhibited by butter. Thus, consumers, including household consumers and commercial baking concerns alike, long for an improved butter/margarine blend that accommodates health concerns about butterfat while achieving baking properties, mouth-feel properties, and flavor and taste that equal or even exceed those exhibited by butter.
The present invention concerns a method of forming a butter-based product, such as a butter/margarine blend, that includes removing water or butterfat from a feed material that includes butter to yield an intermediate, combining a non-dairy fat with the intermediate to form an intermediate blend, and processing the intermediate blend to form the butter-based product. The present invention further includes a method of forming a concentrated butter. The method of the present invention additionally includes a concentrated butter, a butter-based product, and a concentrated butter product.